Pagina's

One of the key elements in the deep denial that the warmists display over Climate Gate is their obsession with 'peer-review'. Pointing out the abundance of peer-reviewed papers that demonstrate global warming and the contrasting sparse appearance of papers demonstrating the opposite in peer-reviewed literature, they try to keep up the pretence that they have the truth on their side, despite everything.

James Delingpole tears apart the warmists obsession with 'peer-review' in a post on his blog today. He shows that the peer-review system in climate science has been irreparably, terminally corrupted by a handful of scientist that have set themselves up as the high priests of climate truth.

Neutral observers in this war sometimes ask how it can be that the vast majority of the world’s scientists seem to be in favour of AGW theory. “Peer-review” is why. Only a handful of scientists – 53 to be precise, not the much-touted 2,500 – were actually responsible for the doom-laden global-warming sections of the IPCC’s reports. They were all part of this cosy, self-selecting, peer-review cabal.

Along the way Delingpole makes a rather important observation:

In true Gramscian style they marched on the institutions – capturing the magazines (Science, Scientific American, Nature, etc), the seats of learning (Climate Research Institute; Hadley Centre), the NGO’s (Greenpeace, WWF, etc), the political bases (especially the EU), the newspapers (pretty much the whole of the MSM I’m ashamed, as a print journalist, to say) – and made sure that the only point of view deemed academically and intellectually acceptable was their one.

Readers of this blog, certainly the ones that follow us for Fjordman updates, will recognize the reference to Gramsci. In the past Fjordman has done number of essays exploring this beast we call multiculturalism, tracing its way back to the ideas of 'cultural hegemony' postulated by Gramsci. It more commonly known as cultural marxism. I'll give a list of links to Fjordmans and other essays on this subject for those who want to delve into the subject. Delingpoles observation points to what may be an implication of Climate Gate that goes beyond climate science per sé.

There seems to be a mechanism that is central to the many scares we've had over the last 20 years, as EU Referendum show in a highly readable post. Drawing an analogy with the difference between conductors and mere members of an orchestra, Mr. North writes:

Phil Jones is not just a labourer in the vineyard, but the conductor of a vast orchestra. He co-ordinates the output of fellow workers, forming the hub of an international nexus, ensuring they are all "on-message" and sing to the same hymn sheet.(...)

And that is the way the scare dynamic works. There is always a core group, from which the "orthodoxy" radiates, the rest of the work being derivative and highly dependent on the core hypothesis. Strip out that core, and there is nothing there.(...)

The real way to look at it though is as one vast orchestra. More players make for more volume, but they do not change the tune.

This mechanism is politically neutral in principle. But it is a particularly efficient weapon in the hands of those that are playing for power and nothing else. Whereas conservatives are mainly preoccupied with preserving freedom and (personal) sovereignty, progressives want to reshape the world in their image. To do that they need the power to enact the changes the seek. They need the power to coerce the unwilling. They need power, period. Hence, the 'long march through the institutions' is undertaken by progressives finding each other in every corner of society, setting themselves up and poisoning every organisation they get access to. Simply by virtue of ruthlessly applied dictat that 'the personal is political', i.e. everything is made political, every arena is a struggle for political power.

Climate Gate has demonstrated (and is still demonstrating) how far the tentacles of this type of cultural marxism have spread. It is shown in the continuing reluctance of the MSM on mainland Europe to confront the issues around the leaked CRU material. It is shown in the dogged insistence that a deal in Copenhagen must made and CO2 emission trading schemes must be implemented, despite the fact that much of the rationale for these has come into serious doubt. It is shown in the refusal of our government to address the issues the leaked emails reveal, while vilifying as 'criminal hackers' the whistle-blower(s).

This scandal is now a week old. Every day that passes with both MSM and the body politics studiously looking away is a further indictment of both. Up to now that could be understood as reluctance to admit being wrong about global warming. Or even embarrassment about the laughable but prohibitively expensive measures that were introduced and defended.

But the continuing silence and occasional pooh-poohing of what happened last week is increasingly suggesting something else: That governments and MSM is mostly made up of people sympathetic to the disgraced scientists of CRU. That the same forces that shaped the climate science community have corrupted much, much more of our society. Thus the already sizeable Climate Gate scandal may be only the prelude to the realization there is a much bigger scandal afoot. That of government, MSM, NGO's and academia conspiring to coerce all of us into their ideal form of society under false pretence.

In this light it is not by accident that climate change was so eagerly adopted as a cause celèbre by both the EUnion and the UN. As 'not my president' van Rompuy stated:

2009 is also the first year of global governance, with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet.

Of course this has been a suspicion for some time now, as the Fjordman posts linked to below will confirm. What must be shocking to many people, though, is the revelation this week, indeed the proof, that even supposedly hard science was not immune to the corruption of the cultural marxists. It is the contrast between the scientific ideal, the Popperian model, and the sleazy climate science practice that has jolted many out of their slumber. And the longer governments and MSM refuse to do what is expected of them, the more ordinary citizens will realize that something potentially sinister is going on. Ironically, it will be science, that quest for materialistic truth, that may prove to be the starting point of the unravelling of the grand designs of our Gramscian elites. The truth will set you free, and all that.